When building the team to drive your dream into existence, it is important for entrepreneurs to recognize what traits ooze success in potential employees and which ones should be red flags. As mentioned in How to Hire A-Players, by Eric Herrenkohl, certain skillsets that are ingrained into a person can become real assets when developing any team, especially a startup team.
Which Skills Matter
An interesting concept that is presented by Herrenkohl is that many entrepreneurs are inclined to hire employees with specific backgrounds. For example, college athletes, kids who have grown up on farms, and even a worker from a diverse background who had to fight to climb the ladder are commonly viewed as ideal employment candidates. The though process behind this construct is that the fighter mentality that life circumstances have given to these specific pools of people has provided them with abilities to overcome obstacles that a standard applicant probably does not possess. Herrenkohl goes so far as to mention the innate skills developed by servers in restaurants, and how the many skills they must master to be successful in their position are things that can’t be taught. Not everyone can be successful when faced with adversity, but those who can, and who have repeatedly proven that they can, are the people you want on your team.
What Can We Teach
Remedial tasks and intel about product offerings can be learned through traditional instructional methods. However, resilience, passion, and drive to excel are skills that can only be innate or learned through necessity. When we build our teams, identifying which pools of applicants will best suit our needs, it behooves the recruiter to find those who have traits that can’t be taught. If someone already possesses tenacity and drive, everything else can be picked up along the way.
Print Reference:
Herrenkohl, E. (2012). How to hire A-players: Finding the top people for your team—even if you don’t have a recruiting department. John Wiley & Sons. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119199830
